


Discordant Notes

by timetobegin



Category: Call Me Katie (Web Series), Nothing Like The Sun (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, M/M, george squared, i had feels and this happened, seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 10:40:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9068134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timetobegin/pseuds/timetobegin
Summary: A relationship starts out like a melody: high, sweet, lovely. But it doesn't always stay that way.





	

A relationship starts out like a melody: high, sweet, lovely. A simple line of music that builds on itself and grows into something bigger, and somehow smells of chocolate.

 

“You were so in love with me, admit it.” You get a thrill of anxiety and exhilaration using the “L” word so soon. You’ve been dating less than a month after all. But you get an even bigger thrill when he just grins doofily up at you and definitely doesn’t refute it.

 

You love each other, of course you do. You always have. Now it’s just a matter of kind.

 

He ends up in your lap with his tongue in your mouth, a position you’re both growing delightfully familiar with. You can’t ever remember wanting someone this much, but maybe that’s because you’ve wanted him for as long as you can remember.

 

Maybe it should scare you, but how can something that makes you so unequivocally happy ever be bad?

 

A relationship grows like a melody: it changes and becomes more complicated. The easy melody swells and diversifies, gaining harmonies that are not always in a major key.

 

“Can you believe a year from now we’ll be done with Padua?”

 

You’re lying in your backyard, gazing at the endless universe and enjoying the warm spring nigh air on your skin. Your exams are over, everything is turned in. You have two and a half blissful months without assignments, textbooks, without keeping your balance in the hallways while everyone is pushing and shoving around you to get to their classrooms on time.

 

But not without music. That would be insane.

 

“No,” he responds. “I can’t even imagine it.”

 

“Really? I can.”

 

Out of the corner of your eye, you see him roll onto his side, propped on elbow so he can look at you, giant grin on his face. “Tell me.”

 

“Well, obviously I’m going to the Con, studying music composition.”

 

“Obviously.”

 

“I’ve already started looking at some of the courses to see which ones I want to apply to. They all look so interesting, it’ll be hard to choose. But I’m excited.”

 

His smile dims a bit. “That’s great, G.”

 

Your heart twinges in sympathy for him. He’s never been as decisive as you, about anything, and it’s starting to get really hard for him. Everyone they talk to, their parents, their friends, their parents’ friends, their teachers, have started asking the year twelves about their plans. You sympathize, but you don’t understand the panic and fear that accompanies those questions when you don’t have a ready answer.

 

You take his hand. He squeezes yours.

 

“It’s just… I try looking into my future and it’s like Harry and Ron looking into those crystal balls. ‘There’s gonna be loads of fog tonight,’ that’s all I’ve got. I can’t see myself next year, let alone in ten years, who I’ll be, what I’ll be doing. I don’t feel like I have clarity about anything.”

 

Something squeezes your heart, a kind of fear. “You don’t feel that way about us, do you?”

 

“Don’t be stupid,” and his mouth covers yours.

 

A relationship ends like a melody: deep, dark, discordant notes turning the loved lines of music sour.

 

You can’t remember how this fight started because it’s so similar to all the others. Because there’s this gap of feelings that words can’t seem to bridge. So you shout at each other across the chasm, knowing it won’t do any good.

 

“You know, it’s really starting to feel like I’m the only one who actually cares about this relationship.”

 

“G, that’s absolutely not fair. You know how I feel about you.”

 

“Do I? You’ve never said it. I’ve told you I love you so many times but you never say it back, don’t think I don’t notice. At first it was fine, because I didn’t want to pressure you into saying something you didn’t mean, but we never talk about it. And I can feel you pulling away from me and you’re not talking to me when I desperately want you to–”

 

“Can’t you see I’m under a ton of pressure right now? Everyone wants me to have everything figured out, including you! I can’t talk to you about it because you just don’t get it, and you get mad and defensive when I try to explain! I shouldn’t have to feel like I can’t talk to my _boyfriend_ about this, and I shouldn’t have to talk about it at all when all I want to do is just be with you and not have to worry about the fact that I have no clue what I want my future to be!”

 

You try not to cry, because you can feel where this is going, even if your brain hasn’t accepted it. “Does that mean you can’t see us being together in your future?”

 

He sighs and rubs the back of his neck. “I don’t know.”

 

Those three words, the wrong three words, stab you in the gut. You feel like the wind’s been knocked out of you, though you’re pretty sure you saw it coming. It’s one thing to know things are going bad, but it’s quite another to know they’re bad enough that they can’t be fixed.

 

You see realization dawn in his eyes and you know he knows what you’re about to say. After the realization, panic. Which hurts more than anything because it means he really does care about you, but not enough.

 

“No, Gleeson, that’s not—I just, how can we possibly know what’s going to happen–”

 

“ _I know_. It’s over.” You’re very glad you’re at his place, because you can turn and walk away.

 

A relationship ends like a melody.

 

It ends. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry. Maybe. 
> 
> Thanks as ever to the Gleeson to my Bates (minus the relationship drama) [Balthy](http://thealpacalypse.tumblr.com/). Comments are gold, or yell at me on [tumblr](http://ofcourseitsinsidemyhead.tumblr.com/).


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